


of childhood hideouts and magical doorways

by AshAndSnow



Series: Bad prompt mashups [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Bullying, First Kiss, First Love, Growing Up, Happy Ending, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Kid Fic, M/M, Magical Doorways, Portal Fantasy, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:15:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27404896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshAndSnow/pseuds/AshAndSnow
Summary: Tony Stark, 11 years old, was simply looking for sanctuary from bullies when he decided to climb into that wardrobe. He finds much more than he bargained for in the process.(Prompts:1. A classic children’s story in a modern setting2. A child has just transferred to a new school)
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Series: Bad prompt mashups [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1987786
Comments: 10
Kudos: 104





	of childhood hideouts and magical doorways

i.

Tony Stark is a smart boy.

He knows how to build an engine. He knows how to hotwire his father’s car. He knows how to crack a safe, and he knows that when parents love their children, they don’t send them away.

This is also how he knows his father doesn’t love him.

”Chin up,” his mother tries to soothe him. They’re in his new room, at the boarding school his father has picked out for him, though his father is nowhere to be seen. ”You will make so many new friends and learn so many new things. It will be good for you.”

Tony also knows that when his mother’s voice wavers, just that tiny bit, towards the ends, like it did just now, that’s when she is saying what she has to, not what she really thinks.

Tony wants to ask why his father isn’t here. But he knows that whatever she will say, her voice will waver again. So he doesn’t.

Instead he nods, mutely, and lets her mother kiss his forehead before she leaves.

That night, he cries himself to sleep.

ii.

Tony finds it hard to settle in.

At 11 years old, he’s a few years younger than the rest of even the youngest of the rest of the student body, but he’s smarter than everyone else. And that doesn’t earn him many friends.

”Can I sit here?” he asks, several times a day, during meal times and in the library, and outside at the picnic table.

At best, he’s allowed to sit, but not to join in on whatever’s happening. The conversation will flow as if he isn’t there, maybe a bit stilted, maybe with some glances in his direction. But never is he allowed to partake.

At worst, he’s scoffed and laughed at.

After a few days, he stops trying.

iii.

As if beinglonely wasn’t bad enough, Tony is also occasionally the target of bullying.

He isn’t exclusively and personally targeted. It’s more that there’s a gang of big boys, the kind who think they can get away with whatever they want, and they target whatever weak and vulnerable kid is in their way, whenever they feel like inflicting a little pain. And sometimes, that kid just happens to be Tony.

Which is how he winds up running through an unfamiliar hallway, the pounding of his feet echoing in the empty, unoccupied corridor.

Somewhere behind him, laughter is following, voices jeering and sneering. He’s out of sight of his tormentors for the time being, but they’re just around the bend, and if he doesn’t act soon? They’ll catch him.

He makes a quick decision and scurries through a door as quietly as he can, barely able to breathe when the door closes with a click.

For a second, he relishes being alone. But only for a second. If he can get into this room, so can those older boys. And he’s out of places to run.

He takes stock of the room. It’s a bedroom, but it’s far too nice for a student’s dorm, even if it’s a bit dusty and abandoned-looking. Everything is bigger. The bed, the desk, the space, the wardrobe, the dresser, the bookshelf.

A bigger room for a bigger person, Tony thinks. Once, teachers lived on the grounds. These days, most of the teachers have families and homes and a life outside of this place. The only rooms occupied by staff are a few overnight suites, scattered among the dorms, so there are places to sleep for the handful of teachers stuck on night watch duty that night.  
  
This whole wing must have been living quarters for teachers once.

Tony’s inquisitive mind starts to wander, but he doesn’t get to dwell on his thoughts for long. Somewhere out in the hall, voices are coming closer.

Without thinking, he ducks into the closet.

For what feels like an eternity, he stands stock still, breathing as shallowly as he can in an effort to minimize the amount of noise he is making.

Then, someone whoops loudly outside, and it startles Tony so badly that he takes a step back.

He fully expects to hit the back of the closet, but… nothing’s there.

Turning, slowly, Tony eyes what’s behind him, and sees…

a whole lot of nothing.

Where the back of the closet should have been, it’s just… nothing. The closet just keeps going, like a tunnel.

Going any further sounds like a bad idea. A terrible, no good, awful, really shit idea. It sounds like a good way to be swallowed up by the universe.

Mind, Tony’s a very rational kid. He likes science and numbers and facts, and he does not believe in random voids in wardrobes.

But he knows what he’s seeing. And of course he has to explore.

Curiosity getting the better of him, he starts to walk.

iv.

Time has an odd way of passing as Tony walks through the wardrobe.

He can’t tell if he’s been walking for an hour or a minute, and when he makes it out onto the other side, he feels disoriented.

A feeling that isn’t helped by the sheer _brightness_ of this place.

He’s in a clearing, the treeline forming the neat circle, Tony’s finding himself in, only unbroken by the empty, free-standing doorway to nothing, through which Tony exited.

Somewhere past the forest, he can see buildings. Large and golden, reflecting the brightness of the sun, unlike anything he’s ever seen before. And Tony’s seen a lot. He’s done his fair share of sightseeing and googling and writing assignments, thank you very much. Yet this is completely new.

Intrigued, he steps further away from the doorway, looking around.

He spends a good hour, exploring his immediate surroundings. The flowers are unlike any he’s encountered, as are the trees. It’s all so new and exciting, and he completely forgets that he should be weirded out, or that there’s a world back on the other side of that doorframe.

  
But the peace cannot last.

”Who are you?”

Tony yips, startled, and whirls around. In doing so, he comes face to face with another boy.

He’s about Tony’s height, although a bit less wide, with features bound to grow sharp with age, milky pale skin, smooth black hair, and the brightest green eyes he’s ever encountered. He’s dressed oddly, like something out of a fantasy novel, a little green cape included and everything.

He’s the most intriguing thing Tony’s ever laid eyes on.

He cannot explain why. He’s just a boy. A boy with weird clothes, but a boy nonetheless. And yet, there’s a tug inside him. Like… Like there’s something to this kid. Like he needs to know more.

”Did you not hear me? I wish to know who you are?” the boy demands, and oh, Tony must have been gawking.

”Tony,” he blurts. ”I’m. Tony. That’s my name.”

The boy wrinkles his nose. ”What kind of name is Tony?”

Tony shrugs, for a second self conscious. Then reason catches up with him; just because the boy sounds like he’s always right, it doesn’t mean he really is. He straightens up. ”Hey, Tony’s a perfectly normal name. Lots of people are named Tony. Tony the Tiger. And Tony Hawk.”

The boy looks like Tony’s absolutely losing it. ”You’re making that up,” he accuses.

”Am not,” Tony grumbles. ”What’s your name, anyway? Bet yours is even weirder than mine.”  
  
For second, the boy looks surprised, like he cannot believe he would be asked that. But then, he looks intrigued. ”Loki. I am Loki.”

”Ha!” Tony crows. ”Loki is definitely weirder than Tony! I have never heard of a Loki before!”

”You must not be from around here, then,” Loki determines, looking at Tony with thoughtful eyes. And, well, he’s not wrong.

”I don’t really know where I am,” he confesses, gesturing to the doorway in the treeline. ”I came through there when I was looking for a place to hide. I was being chased by some mean kids at school.”

”Ah,” Loki sympathizes, nodding. ”I see.”  
  
Tony perks up. ”You do? Do you know anything about the door?”  
  
Loki shakes his head. ”No. It is usually closed. I have never had any success with opening it.”  
  
”Oh,” Tony says, vaguely disappointed that this Loki-kid doesn’t have any answers about the door for him. Then he shakes it off. ”Do you wanna experiment? We can maybe figure out how it works?”

That makes Loki smile and nod. ”Okay. I’d like that.”

v.

They keep at it until nightfall, at which point Loki has to go home, and Tony figures he’ll have to hurry not to miss dinner. They can’t make out exactly how the door works, but they have so much fun that they agree to meet again.

It turns into a regular thing. They meet up almost every day, unless something prevents them from doing so, and they become close friends.

Loki teaches him whatever he can about Asgard, this strange and wonderful land, hidden in the old wardrobe, and Tony in turn tells Loki about his own life and world.

Tony, bit by bit, shares everything there is to say about his poor relationship with his father, how he struggles to make friends in school, how he wants to grow up to build cool machines. How his favourite fruit is oranges, how he sometimes sleep better with the lights on, how he likes to deliberately wear his clothes a little mismatched in a quiet rebellion against boarding school life.

Loki, in turn, talks about life as a prince, overshadowed little brother, and lonely bookworm. He has a sweet tooth, and he likes going to the theater, and how he named his horse Máni after the moon.

Tony doesn’t know much about love or it’s many nuances, how you can love people in different ways. He does, however, know that he loves Loki. Whatever shape his feelings are taking, it’s love at its core.

He can tell by the way Loki always squeezes his hand in goodbye, the way they glitter as he says ’come back to me tomorrow?’ that Loki loves him too.

vi.

”My world fucking _sucks_!” Tony declares, practically growling as he hurls his book bag to the ground, before he proceeds to join it, sprawling out on his back on the grass next to where Loki is sitting, legs folded. He is sixteen, but he knows he is throwing a temper tantrum like he’s ten years younger.

Not that he cares.

”I am sorry to hear it,” Loki says. He closes his leatherbound journal, his pen – a glittery pink one Tony gave him as a joke – acting as bookmark, and then he trains his gaze on Tony’s. ”Would you like to speak of it?”  
  
Tony smiles a bit. He’s always been fond of the slight formality in Loki’s speech, even in such a casual setting as this.

”I don’t know. It’s just… fuck, some of the older kids are still being assholes, and my teachers are getting fed up with me, and my dad’s trying to push me to pick up the pace. Wants me to skip grades, get ahead, become part of the company as soon as possible. And I just...” He exhaled sharply. ”I am fed up. I am so fucking fed up.”

”I am sorry,” Loki speaks softly. He seems to hesitate for a second, like he wants to speak or do something, and then… then he lifts his hand and strokes Tony’s hair.

It’s an immediate balm. Tony closes his eyes, practically melting into the ground. ”Keep doing that,” he requests.

Loki does. It feels more like home than anything in his own world ever has.

vii.

Normally, they’d part ways at nightfall at the latest. But Tony refuses.

”Just let me stay the night,” he begs, and Loki agrees.

And so, a few days pass. They sleep in the grass, curled tight. They watch the stars and tell stories. And during the day, they explore the woods, climb trees, eat berries, and swim in the river.

It’s like paradise. And Tony never wants to leave.

Every so often, Loki will look at Tony, frowning gently, and ask ”don’t you think you should go back?”

And Tony knows why; knows that Loki is worried.

Loki knows him better than anyone. And so Loki knows that Tony is running. Running from a world where he has never fit in, where he’s never felt truly loved or cared for, where he’s never felt like he had any freedom of choice in relation to his future.

And it’s true. He _is_ running.

Which is exactly why he, every time, just flashes Loki a sharp grin and says ”what, trying to get rid of me?”

And because Loki is Loki, as uncertain and protective of what they have as Tony, he doesn’t push it.

Until, finally, on the fifth day, he does.

”I think you should go home,” he says. They’re sitting next to each other, backs against a big tree – like an oak, but also not quite, something different and curious – and they’re looking at each other, noses inches apart.

Tony opens his mouth, to make a quip in his usual fashion, but Loki cuts him off before he can. ”No, Tony, I mean it. This… this isn’t going to work forever. Both of us, we have have been missing for five days. I think we both need to go back. At least for a few hours. Get our affairs in order.”

Again, Tony intends to argue, but Loki raises his hand and rests it on Tony’s cheek. That, and the way those green, green eyes draw him in, it’s enough to make him remain silent.

”Tony,” Loki says, whispersoft like a feather. ”You’re… You’re the most precious thing in any and all worlds to me. But you know that we are here on borrowed time.” His thumb brushes a tiny semicircle across Tony’s cheekbone, and Tony feels like his bones might just give out. ”Please. Whatever this is, I would wish for it to be handled right.”  
  
And, well. Tony can’t argue with that.

He leans in, and when their lips brush, he feels his insides swoop with joy. He thinks this must be what it feels like to cast a spell; exhilirating, like all the world is at his fingertips and nothing can defeat him.

When they part – their first kiss, Tony knows, the first ever for both of them, and fuck, he’s so, so happy he gifted this to Loki – their foreheads remain resting against each other.

”Alright,” Tony relents. ”I’ll go home. But I’ll be back.”

Loki smiles, eyes shining. ”Come back to me tomorrow.”

iix.

Of course Tony’s in for a world of trouble when he returns. Five days missing. Of course he was noticed.

He tells a semi-truth. That he just needed a time out, and the boarding school is vast, so very vast, with so many rooms and corners and levels. It is by no means impossible to hide, even without the aid of magical doorways to other worlds.

Eventually, he’s allowed to go to bed, with a promise that he’ll be grilled and scolded and coddled some more in the morning, and though he’s exhausted, he doesn’t go to bed.

He packs a bag.

He knows Loki won’t be there tonight, is probably dealing with the aftermath of his own disappearance. But he wants to just see the clearing. Wants to leave a few items behind. Wants to maybe start, slowly and surely, moving his life to this other world. All he wants is to be with Loki, be in Asgard, away from the mess that is his own constricted life.

But when he comes back, the door is missing.

The wardrobe is just a wardrobe.

ix.

No matter how many times, the door never reappears. At first, Tony checks, every single time he has a free moment.

Then, he checks once a day.

Then, he checks once a week.

At least, he only checks every now and then, until finally he just stops.

He doesn’t deliberately give up. It’s more that his hope starts to fade, and he starts to admit to himself that the door will never reappear.

He moves on.

Without the constant distraction of another world, lurking in the back of his mind and providing an escape, it suddenly turns out that Tony has much more time and energy to spare for other people. He makes a few friends, he finishes school, and he manages to breeze through college and earn himself a few degrees.

After that, he joins the family company, and he sleeps with a thousand different women who could not look less like Loki.

x.

”Whiskey,” Tony orders, leaning casually against the bar.

He’s 26, he’s at a charity gala, and he’s finally somewhat content.

He tries not to think too much about his childhood escape. But whenever he does, it’s bittersweet.

He had been a lost child, and that escape had been welcome. And he does believe that, had he succeeded in getting through the door that night, bag in hand, looking for a new life, he would have stood by his decision.

But he knows now that he couldn’t have run forever. Whatever issues he was dealing with, it would have followed him eventually.

He’s proud, instead, of the way he pulled himself together, got through his rough patch, and made something of himself. And if he sometimes thinks wistfully of the boy with the black hair, feels like something is missing from his life whenever he does, well. There’s probably a saying about first loves or something that would fit that.

His whiskey is pushed towards him, and Tony takes it with a nod and an obscenely largely dollar bill shoved into the tip jar. As he takes his first sip, he turns to admire the crowd…

And catches sight of black hair and green eyes.

For a second, Tony almost chokes on his drink. For another, he wonders if he’s seeing things.

But no. Older he may be, but there is little chance of mistaking the look in those eyes, the curve of those lips.

Loki.

And when Loki turns, mouth curling into a bright grin as soon as their eyes meet, that missing something slots back into place.

Downing his drink, Tony puts the glass down, and walks towards Loki.

It looks like it’s his turn to whisk Loki away.


End file.
